Five Marks of Mission

The Five Marks of Mission, developed by the Anglican Consultative Council and adopted by the General Convention in 2009, are:

To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom

To teach, baptize and nurture new believers

To respond to human need by loving service

To seek to transform unjust structures of society

To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth

In
a succinct way, the Five Marks of Mission offer a framework for mission
and ministry work. For many, the work of the Five Marks is already part
of a congregational or personal mission program. Whether it’s when you
recycle (Mark #5), undertake social justice work (Mark #4), donate to a
food bank, volunteer at a soup kitchen (Mark #3), renew your baptismal
vows (Marks #1 and #2), or countless other ways, the Five Marks of
Mission shine through.

“Mission is really making us all aware of
the incredible love that God has for all of us,” said Archbishop Desmond
Tutu in a May 19 webcast about Mission. “It says things like: you don’t
have to earn God’s love. God loves you, period. Everything flows from
there.”

Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori noted in the
May 19 webcast that mission is about receiving love and then responding
by going out and sharing. “It is a matter of calling the near and the
far off together into the fold. It is about healing and reconciling. It
is about making that love incarnate in the lives of people around us and
in the lives of people on the other end of the earth.”

At Ascension Church, we take the calling of mission very seriously. In the days to come, you will find examples in this space of the ways that we are engaged in missional activity, and the ways in which we plan to be active in further missional activity. Even as we take Bishop Katharine's comment to heart, we see our greatest mission in all of the five areas within the community our parish serves.